


Date Nite

by KoroMarimo



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Communication Failure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 10:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoroMarimo/pseuds/KoroMarimo
Summary: When shit went down, he was the only one to be standing strong. He had to... he had to do it for her.





	Date Nite

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a good friend on Tumblr and I hope you like it because two more chappies be coming and I’m sorry this is so late fml... ;3;

“It’s fine.”

Mantra of the night.

“It’s alright.”

“You good fam.”

“I gotchu.”

But deep down Guzma knows it ain’t alright. It ain’t even remotely close to fine, he ain’t good, and you barely got yourself.

Chasing dreams, making a fool of yourself, you’ve done it all. Just like him, and one of the many things that endeared him to you. Everything he tried to do to make trial captain was all for naught, and better than anyone he knew the state you were currently in. It was just the problem of your denial that prevented him from giving you the help you truly needed...

Date nights hadn’t been this tense, not since you visited before your last trip to Sinnoh. A bundle of nerves had come to see him at least a year ago, crying about how nervous she was to take on the Sinnoh league all over again, and oh my god what if I don’t make it, what if I fail, spouting all these different worries and anxieties pickled and stuffed up into one big fuckaroo of a thing you called life. Then when you left, unable to call or write because you wanted to commit fully, he agonized endlessly but trusted in his pride for you. Well... no news came. Everything had gone dark for a few minutes, and there were no new updates on the Sinnoh League champion. Guzma, well, he’d been living a life of debauchery after leaving his parent’s house and forming up his own ragtag group of criminals, and ironically there wasn’t anyone else he could think of that he wanted to share his accomplishments with but you. It was just that when you finally came home, and he managed to get you alone before anyone else, he found you oddly closed off to everyone, even the one criminal boss you trusted from the beginning.

This bullshit sucked. Plain and simple. But what could he say?

“It’s fine.” You insisted. “Order whatever you want babe. It’s all on me.”

“Ya sure?” Guzma finally settled on. “Don’t look alright Lynnie...”

“Naaah.”

You waved it off, like swatting imaginary cutieflies out of your face. The Ronin set he wanted to share was costly, for normal folks it meant half a month’s salary. For trainers, it was more money than you could expect to battle for on the islands without a VS Seeker.

“Told you, ‘s fine. I’ll buy this time.”

“Uh...”

“Yeah.” You insisted, “No trouble at all my dude. Besides, like you’re in a position to buy anything, with your broke ass.”

He shrinks back, not at your comment, but your laugh. It sounds too hollow. Too depraved of any sort of joy. It speaks the volumes of words that won’t come out of your mouth no matter how many times someone asks you how life treated you in a colder climate. There’s only one indication that your trip even existed (because let’s face it, all interactions have basically indicated it never happened). Your Pokémon, a grizzled Infernape that drapes its arms lazily around you every now and again, seems to bear the only souvenir of a scar, and it’s an old one at that... There’s no fanfare, no presents for anyone save for the scarf you’d gotten him.

What can Guzma say? You won’t talk to him about the things that plague your mind as the appetizers come out, bowls of miso soup and a plate of tempura that he devours but you can only pick at. Naturally, as expected, there is no conversation the whole of dinner even though he wants desperately to catch up. To have both of you brag about successes, cry about failures, anything save for this damned silence that will not end. But he can’t reach you, all he can do is reach the food, and it’s been a while since he’s eaten this good. So the only thing he can do at the moment is eat. The aforementioned Ronin Set is gone the minute it hits the table, and the sad piece that Guzma has spared you sits untouched, going lukewarm by the time the bill hits the table and you’re paying for everything on a card.

It’s the next sentence that worries him: “I’m not sure what’s on this one but let’s give it a try.”

Oh hell no. Not if you were just as broke ass as he was. Immediately he flags down the waiter, nearly tackling the poor man as Guzma tails after him on the pretense of taking a leak before you both return home. He stuffs a wad of cash into his hand unceremoniously, assuring him rather gruffly that if he brings back the receipt and card in one piece that he can keep the change. It’s not that hard to convince the waiter, especially when Guzma doesn’t pay attention to how much of his hidden stash he slaps into the other man’s hand before hightailing it back to the table, and considering the fact that the locals know him well in Malie, and will give this hardened criminal whatever in the hell he wants.

The waiter comes back and presents your card and receipt with a flourish. You take it nonchalantly, and Guzma thanks the gods that you simply take the card and stand up.

“Ready?” You ask, seemingly ready for the night to end. Infernape follows behind, equally disenchanted with everything that Sushi High Roller has to offer.

“I...”

He wants to make a scene, cause a dramatic altercation because, as one Ms. Clavel might say: Something is not right.

He suddenly find himself pushing the chair out behind him, the noise harsh as the legs scrape the flooring. Guzma has to book it after you, because you’re already out the door and walking into the brightly lit streets by the time he catches up. You look back briefly, shrugging when you see him panting, breathless with anger, and you’re about to tell him goodnight when the nuclear bomb decides it’s time to drop.

“ _What the fuck is your damage?!_ ”

You’re caught off guard. The world stops spinning on its axis, holding breath from the moment the first word exploded from his mouth into the mushroom cloud that formed the rest of the sentence. The rest of Malie floats away on the wind, a blur of colored lights sprinkling magic droplets into the dark fades away until there is nothing. No city. No people. Just a void. A vacuum in space and time that Guzma has created with the halting bark of his voice and the pent up rage and aggression that cannot be matched by anyone but himself.

“You’re acting like a brat!” He screams, getting right in your face and his eyes blazing with something so fierce that even infernape cannot come to your rescue.

“You leave me for a year, ya don’t call or write to me, or even think to lemme know you’re still kicking... then ya come back and have the audacity to axe me out and take me to this tired date so you can avoid questions and treat me like imma fuckin’ stranger to ya! This is BULLSHIT! Why the hell you don’t tell me what’s going on with ya?! Come on Lynnie! Talk to me! TALK GODDAMN YOU!”

His words have knocked the breath out of you. It’s... quite a long time before anyone moves or says a word and he’s about to go for it again when you suddenly break down and begin sobbing, infernape trying to resuscitate you from your break down and nearly torching Guzma when he drops to his knees to come and get you up off the floor. You struggle briefly, once, twice, before pushing infernape away and collapsing in Guzma’s arms where your facade of holding it together reveals quite the contrary.

You closed off because you were broken. He doesn’t have to pry to get you to talk because in that brief instant that you’re clinging like an animal to him he knows. He knows you’re here for good. He knows that you tried your best at everything you’ve done and come back a failure because he’s gone through the exact same shit, taking a nine iron to the face to show for it. You don’t need to tell him that becoming the champion fell through, because the emotion you exude and the mantras of “I did my best” slipping out between the dry heaves and snot bubbles is so heartbreakingly familiar, so mind numbingly sad that it takes everything inside Guzma not to break down into a million pieces right there with you in the street.

One thing he knows... and he knows it for certain... you are not going home tonight nor any of the other nights after. He will be go to hell if he lets you out of his sight and out of his life ever again.


End file.
